Legends of the Five Rings:

Shugenja Duels

We had a little group discussion on duels in Rokugan, and how the rules for shugenja duels compare to the rules for iai duels.  Some of the issues included whether other skills can be substituted, whether duels can be refused, and the fact that in magic duels, not only do you take damage from your opponent, you also take damage from your own roll equal to the amount you fail by if you fail.  Here is a post by Edmund which was funny enough to end up on this page.


Since we are on the subject of duelling, I want to register a complaint about the L5R rules.  Specifically the magic duelling rules.

As I understand it, the winner of a magical duel gets to roll and keep a number of dice equal to their ring when smiting the loser.  This makes magical duels potentially REALLY deadly - more deadly than one-strike iaijutsu duels, particularly in the case of cheesy, unbalanced, overpowered, magic-loving clans (which will not be mentioned by name, but whose name rhymes with Kleenex) who can crank their stats up grotesquely and unfairly high even as beginning characters (but I am not mentioning any names, la la la la la la la!).  Given that said cheesy, unbalanced, overpowered, magic-loving clan is supposedly PEACE-LOVING, AND that cheesy, unbalanced, overpowered, magic-loving clan is supposedly the one which came up with this particular method of dueling, this seems a little odd.

KLEENEX (not real name) SHUGENJA:  "You!  Other shugenja!  You should not have kicked that innocent puppy!  You have offended my sense of peacefulness!  I challenge you to a magical duel!"

DOOMED, ER, OTHER SHUGENJA:  "Uh, ok...."

[Insert SFX giant ripping sound, as DOOMED, ER, OTHER SHUGENJA is unravelled and sent screaming into the Void]

KLEENEX (not real name) SHUGENJA:  "That should teach you to be peaceful and not engage in violence in the future!  I hope you have learned your lesson."

As such I would like to suggest a couple of rule changes.

  1. Upon discovering that your opponent is better than you you can take your hands off your scroll case (or whatever) and bow, in a manner similar to what can be done in an iaijutsu duel.  Duel ends.  Nobody gets blown to smithereens.
  2. Before rolling to determine the outcome of the duel, both players determine how many dice they will keep for damage.  You have to keep a minimum of one die.
[NOTE - the preceeding was merely a rules suggestion.  Any resemblance between the KLEENEX clan and any other clan in Rokugan is purely coincidental.  Views expressed are not necessarily those of Amakuchi, who is in any event an inconsequential ronin and therefore beneath the notice of any grotesquely powerful shugenja who might want to unravel him.  VOID where prohibited.]
 

To this, Bryan commented:

I see no reason why shugenja should not follow the same rules as a bushi while dueling (honorably admitting inferiority).  After all, they are still samurai.  Would a daimyo want to lose his shugenja in crazy duels any more than he wants to lose his bushi?  Plus, shugenja should by nature be more scholarly and less bloodthirsty than their bushi colleagues.

Hehe, a Kleenex Shugenja who wipes away his opponent like so much errant mucus from a runny nose should be heavily reprimanded by his daimyo: "Ok, you thought she was too violent so you simply turned her into human wasabi with a spell?  I think somebody needs to spend a few decades in a remote monastery to think about why that was bad."

Not saying that a PC would ever do that but if they did...

The conversation continued in a more serious tone and other good suggestions were tossed back and forth, but I thought this was pretty funny.

[Return to top]

Return to Main Page

Credits:  Copyright Edmund Metheny, Bryan Head (as indicated in text), 2002.  This site copyright Sophie Lagacé, 2002-2003.